The Second Mountain

How People Move from the Prison of Self to the Joy of Commitment

By: David Brooks

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Number-one New York Times best seller

Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The best-selling author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world.

Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy - who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view...unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain. And so they embark on a new journey.

On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment.

In The Second Mountain, David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.

In short, this audiobook is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme - and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks reveals what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.

©2019 David Brooks (P)2019 Random House Audio

Excellent

This is well worth reading or listening. It contains the wisdom of the ages. I wish I had read it sooner.

Relationship . . . and pathos

David Brooks has taken what is overall a thought-provoking idea about living life beyond self and ruined it through a too in-depth meditation on his marriage and faith practice. I appreciate that the loss of his own first marriage was what stirred him to strive for something beyond self and that loss also brought him closer to his God, but the multiple chapters reflecting on relationship specifically through his marriage and his faith did not belong in this book. Read the first third of the book and the last third of the book for some thought-provoking essays on relationship and community in modern times. Skip the middle lest you too be pulled into his pathos.

Not Bad, Not Great

I have listened to so many great books on Audible. I was hopeful this would be another. It wasn't. I like the way Brooks thinks. I admire his compassion. I enjoyed some of the stories he told to illustrate his points. But overall his book was tedious. I forced myself to finish just I case I was about to be captivated. No luck. His chapter on faith will likely speak to those who are faithful, but I doubt that it will persuade anyone who does not satisfy the mysteries of life with some form of deity-based explanation. Wish I had used my credit on another work.

A great book for our society now

Read and share this book. It expounds on core ideas that will make our society strong again. Strong for society overall and strong for the individuals that live in that society. We stand on the precipice where self-interested individualism coupled with a radical change technologically and economically are leaving more of our society in marginal roles. Self-interested leaders an industry and politics make our precarious situation worse. Fortunately there are others that can and will lead on the large stage or in the small corridors a society with values that can take us to a better place. David Brooks does an excellent job here of sketching out some of the path that can take us to that better place.

A worthwhile listen

This book really makes you think. It is one of those books that I will want to listen to again in a few months and one that I will want my wife to read. Also well narrated.

Long but last chapter great

The book was philosophical in nature with many anecdotes which limited it’s real impact. But the loss of community is real and the solutions offered are very helpful.

A nice summary of current thinking on Community

I liked hearing from leading modern thinkers about what problems face the modern world. the stats about ODs and incarceration shocked me.

A fresh intellectual perspective on life

Well researched, thought provoking wisdom.

David Brooks breaks down the key elements that create the tapestry of our lives through a personal, intellectual and humble lens.

Too long

Would have been more elegant and more accessible as freestanding essays. I did stock with or to the end but felt info overload by the end. Do agree about Hyper Individualism.

Geez Luiz David Brooks!

Absolute life changer.
If there is 2 books I recommend its this and real love by Greg Baer